Ways to Save $1000 or More (Pt. 2)

5. Skip restaurant meals

A family of three will have hard time spending less than $50 at a sit down restaurant. You can cut $2,600 a year skipping one meal out once a week. Fun at home options like taco night or make-your-own-pizza night can easily be made for less than $20, keeping your savings well above $1,000.

6. Get rid of a car

Between car payments, gas, insurance, maintenance, and parking in the city, a single car can cost you several thousand dollars a year. With car-sharing companies like Zipcar and the ride-share services Uber and Lyft, it’s practical for some people to have one car or no car at all.

7. Don’t buy bottled water

Bottled water is undeniably a luxury in a country where nearly everyone has drinkable tap water. What breaks many budgets is the habitual buying of water at restaurants and convenience stores, and even movie theaters or sporting events. In those scenarios, a single bottle can cost anywhere from $2 to double or even triple that.

8. Drive instead of fly on vacation

For many people, taking a vacation means flying. The problem is that for a family of three or four, even a carefully purchased round-trip flight can add over $1,000 to the cost of a trip. If you instead pack up the car and drive somewhere, you will save the cash, and there are very few places in the U.S. where an attractive vacation option is not within a three-hour drive.

9. Keep your phone longer

The latest Apple smartphone, the iPhone 7, costs $649 for the cheapest model. While most people don’t pay the full amount up front, they typically pay that much or more in installments. If a two-person household upgrades their phones every year, that’s a minimum of just under $1,300. For every year you hold on to those phones, you’re keeping your debt down and the money in your pocket.